Counter space in grocery stores, supermarkets and other retail establishments is often at a premium. Most of these businesses provide disposable merchandise bags for their customers to use in transporting their purchases. When using film bags, such as those made of thermoplastics or similar materials, it is desirable that the bag dispensing systems provide bags that are self-opening. Typically, self-opening bag dispensing systems require a rack that holds a pack of merchandise bags on a central hook and a pair of horizontal arms. Such dispensing systems are usually placed on top of a check-out counter and require a square foot of counter space or more, depending upon the bag size. If self-opening bags can be conveniently dispensed without using this counter space, merchandise can be more efficiently handled at check-out counters.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,543,638, issued to Wile, is directed to a T-shirt type bag dispenser in the form of a tray that slides horizontally in the standard industrial rack. The rack can be mounted beneath a counter and a new frame could be mounted under the counter for a second tray similar to the first tray that is held within the same frame so that it can hold two different sized bags. The horizontal tray slides forward and tilts downward to receive pads of plastic bags. Only the T-shirt handles and upper half of the bags are contained within the frame or rack with the lower half draping over and downward from the front of the rack. The tray slides into the rack and locks into position by means of the ends of three rods that have spacers welded in place so that a cross rod is raised a small distance so that the ends of the three rods, drop below the cross rod so that the ends of the rods drop below the outer edge of the rack locking the tray into the frame so that pulling the bags will not pull the frame out of the rack. To remove the sliding tray the forward end is raised and then it can slide out and down for loading.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,115, issued to Kohn is directed to an article support and dispensing rack for use with articles likes plastic bags. The racks include inserts that allow stacking to accommodate different sizes of bags. The removable and adjustable hooks are provided to accommodate the different sizes of bags. The rack has hook members for holding packs of plastic bags. The rack can be placed on a counter or shelf. One embodiment shown includes a housing with a plurality of rack holding members allowing the racks to be slid into place. The rack can have hooks removably mounted on the rods of the racks and bags can be placed on the hooks before being slid onto the rack holding members.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,402, issued to Johnson illustrates a bag storage and dispensing rack that slides on a base member between a stowed position for dispensing and an extended position for adding packs of bags. A base member and a sliding bag support member are both of welded wire construction and adapted for mounting on a horizontal surface. A the first embodiment is adapted to mount on a vertical surface. A mounting technique is illustrated for the base member being suspended from horizontal surface utilizing brackets.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,422, issued to Butters et al. discloses a sliding and tilting shelf drawer for storing and organizing various articles. The sliding and tilting shelf drawer has a base member having a left track and a right track. The tracks are formed of C-shaped channels. Track rollers are attached to the forward end of the tracks inside the channels. A left slide member and a right slide member are slidingly disposed in the tracks. The slide members are configured as elongated inverted L-shaped members each having a slide roller attached to the back ends. The slide rollers are disposed inside the tracks. The slide members are disposed such they ride on track rollers while the slide rollers ride inside the tracks. The present embodiment provides for the compartment to slide between the storage position and the accessible position. The presently described tracks may be positioned in various locations such as beneath on the lower sides or on the upper sides of the compartments.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,763, issued to Wile is directed to a dispensing system for T-shirt type bags. It has a wire rack adapted to be mounted under a merchandiser's checkout counter. The T-shirt type bags are assembled in a disposable tubular cartridge which is supported horizontally by means of a wire rack. The disposable cartridge is formed from a cardboard blank that when installed in the wire rack is retained by a wire hook on the wire rack that retains the bottom panel of cartridge.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,021, issued to Smithson discloses a dispenser for dispensing individual pre-formed stacked bags or sheets. The dispenser includes a casing and an anchor plate releasably engaged within the casing. A catch means secured to the underside of the anchor plate engages with a hole in the stack of bags or sheets. The bags or sheets are folded once around the edge of the anchor plate so that the free ends of the bags or sheets project from the mouth of the casing. Individual bags or sheets can be detached at the free end of the stack by pulling the bag or sheet away from the dispenser. Detachment of more than a few bags at a time is made difficult by frictional effects in the stack. An alternative arrangement in which the anchor plate is fixedly mounted to a base is also described.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a dispensing system for self-opening merchandise bags that minimizes the use of check-out counter space. It is a further objective to provide such a system that can be mounted beneath a check-out counter. It is a still further objective of the invention to provide a bag dispensing system that is easy to load and provides visual inventory of the bags remaining in the bag pack. It is yet a further objective to provide a dispenser that can handle t-shirt style bags as well as header bags. Finally, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a dispensing system that is durable, inexpensive and simple for check-out personnel to operate.
While some of the objectives of the present invention are disclosed in the prior art, none of the inventions found include all of the requirements identified.